Hot: Day 31-The End.

It’s inevitable that when you put a bunch of kids under 6 together there will always be someone crying. Such was the case tonight at a neighborhood barbecue. Someone was always bawling because someone else took their stick and it was a special stick and because there will never be another stick so special in the history of sticks. Or someone threw dirt. Or someone looked at me funny. Or someone wouldn’t let me go down the slide. Or someone said I was a foofoo poopy head.

Oy.

Children.

The best part is that as parents we can watch from the sidelines and place bets on the playground brawls. Who’s going to stand up for themselves, who will best keep their composure, who’s going to cry first and who’s going straight to issuing a smackdown.

Sometimes despite the best of parental watches, something happens and no one’s around to see it right when it happens. You may see the kid go down, or you may be the first to hear a shrill shriek from a kid who’s been downed, but you’re not exactly sure how they got there.

You are able to deduce what happened from the scene of the crime. If there was a small slide involved and the child wailing from behind the slide is alone, chances are he or she just lost their grip and went bottoms up and got a little freaked out on the way down. However if there is another child nearby and the other child looks guilty, chances are there was a “taking turns” altercation and someone pushed someone else. However, as the parent you can never really place blame, because you didn’t see what happened and asking a three year old what happened is about as reliable as asking a dead goldfish which way is up.

So you kiss boo-boos, teary cheeks and bruised egos. You send them back out on the playground, because crap like this is going to be happening their whole life. Only at some point the playground disappears and your mom isn’t around to kiss it better.

Better learned now than in that awkward smelly teenage phase I say. (Which isn’t to say a hard playing three year old can’t work up a good stink. Whoo.)

Bye NaBloPoMo. I won’t really miss you. Sorry.

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Comments

You are so right about the need to interpret what’s happened. It happens all the time when multiple of the children are your own, but the need for instinct never diminishes. Recently, for example, my kids had a fight that ended in tears because, I eventually deciphered, one of them had the audacity to eat the other’s imaginary, invisible chocolate ice cream ALL UP. Gone. Completely. And you can imagine how crushing it is not even to be able to get a bite of your very own lovingly prepared invisible ice cream. So: shrieks. Obviously.

I tell you this just in case you need a new realm of possibilities to consider when you are next on the playground watching a group of kids.

It’s true. Parents have amazing deductive powers. For example, this conversation took place in my home three days ago when I heard the bedroom door slam after repeatedly asking the kids to keep it open:

Me – (to my child) If you can’t leave the door open, you can’t play in here!

My child – (in the saddest voice known to man) Okay.

Me – Who slammed the door?

My child – Kaitlyn did.

Me – Kaitlyn, is that what happened?

Kaitlyn – (not looking me in the eye) Uh, I dunno.

My amazing deductive powers kicked in and PRESTO! I knew who had slammed the door. It’s like magic, I tell you!

Oh, my kids know I have superpowers. I convinced them early on. I have eyes in the back of my head, I know what they’re doing before they do it, and I can tell when they’re lying. They are in awe of me…kind of.